Dining on Concrete

I know that this is out of order, we haven't even posted from just getting/being here in San Antonio yet, but Chantal's on the phone, and I wanted to do this now.

So, I'm going to do a mini-series about the places we're going to dine at while we're here in Texas. I'm blatantly copying Alton Brown and his show "Feasting on Asphalt." I'm a bit of an A.B. junkie/wanna-be. We won't be exploring the country quite like A.B., and we won't be as dedicated to traveling only on the side roads, and we certainly don't have motorcycles. Hence, "concrete" (as is more common on interstates) and not "asphalt." Anyway, here goes...

We went to a place called "El Jalisco Grill" this evening. It's a Mexican restaurant a little off the beaten path from the main commercialized area off I-10 at De Zavala Road. It wasn't too expensive and it was far more empty than what the cuisine deserved. There are a number of remarkable features that we liked about the place.

The menu was in Spanish first and then English, cool. Each item had a picture behind it, which is nice if you want to order something you've never heard of before. Chantal had some sort of really spicy shrimp dish, and it was more spicy than she really wanted. I had the barbacoa, which was outstanding. Even Chantal, who doesn't like barbacoa that much, liked it. It wasn't very flavorful in itself, but it came with many other things that made flavor in the meat less necessary.

The refried beans were probably the best I've ever had. They had a smoky flavor to them that enhanced the barbecue dish flavor. The other thing that made the dish outstanding was that I got a pile of fresh chopped cilantro. I've never had that anywhere else before.

The salsa with the chips was really good as well and also had a nice barbecue flavor to it. The chips also came with nacho cheese, another first for Mexican restaurants in my experience.

All in all, I highly recommend it.

We forgot the camera, but here's a business card to the right.